How a Few Lucky Civil War Soldiers Started Glowing and Healed Faster

June 29, 2018

by Reuben 

P. luminescens normally survives by hitching a ride on a parasitic nematode and chowing down on the insects that nematode infects. It's a complicated and somewhat nauseating life cycle that starts up again by creating a glowing insect corpse that attracts more insects to infect. A crucial part of that process is when P. luminescens makes room for itself and for its parasitic host by cleaning up all of the other bacteria in its way. If this glowing duo happened to find its way into a human wound instead of the insects it normally hunts, it'd clean that wound right up. And since it's not especially infectious to humans (although it certainly can be), P. luminescens is usually no match for our immune systems. There you have it: we wouldn't recommend introducing a new parasite to fight your infections today, but as Civil War medicine goes, it's certainly preferable to a field amputation.